6

Janeway spent most of the next two days trying to smooth things over with the Kerhonkset. She was under strict orders from Starfleet Command to maintain good relations with them, despite the terrorists who had pursued her and Chakotay through the woods. The prime minister had assured her and Starfleet that they would be apprehended and duly punished for their crimes.

She slept and ate little, consumed by her work and worry for her first officer, whose condition was ameliorating slower than the Doctor had hoped. It had been forty eight hours since they had beamed back aboard the ship when the Doctor hailed her and said, "I'm going to attempt to wake Commander Chakotay. I thought you'd like to know."

"I'm on my way."

When she entered sickbay, the Doctor was preparing a hypospray. She stopped at Chakotay's bedside and looked down at him. The green veins had disappeared from his face and neck. The only evidence of the poison was a small, green patch of skin on his shoulder where the thorn had first pierced his skin. Her hand hovered over the spot. "Is that permanent?"

"I believe that in time, it will heal."

"I see. Is there anything I should know before you wake him?"

"I still believe that Commander Chakotay will recover fully. However, you should be aware that when he wakes up, he may feel disoriented, and may experience limited mobility and numbness, especially in his upper body."

Janeway nodded, and held Chakotay's hand as the Doctor pressed a hypospray to his neck. His eyes fluttered open, and he squinted against the bright lights of sickbay. The Doctor leaned over him. "Commander, do you know where you are?"

Kathryn squeezed his hand as he gingerly moved his head from side to side, looking around. "Sickbay," he rasped.

"What's the last thing you remember?" Kathryn asked softly.

He turned to look at her, as if just noticing her presence. "Kathryn?"

"I'm here." She squeezed his hand again.

He lowered his eyes to where their hands were joined, but he couldn't feel anything in his arm. "Can't... feel you."

"You may experience some numbness for a few days, especially on your right side, where the venom spread the most," said the Doctor.

"Venom?"

Janeway moved around the bed and took his other hand in hers. This time when she squeezed his hand, he squeezed back. "Do you remember what happened on Kerhonkset?"

Chakotay closed his eyes, willing his brain to work, and slowly the memories started to come back to him. "We were running. The river. That plant attacked me. The thorn in my shoulder."

The Doctor bustled around the biobed, running a medical tricorder over the commander's body. "That thorn transmitted a poison into your bloodstream which spread to other systems. When it spread to your respiratory system, you stopped breathing."

Chakotay blinked, trying to understand the Doctor's words. "You mean, I died?"

"Fortunately, it was only a few minutes before Lieutenant Kim found a way to communicate with the surface, and I was able to revive you."

"Thanks."

"All in a day's work, Commander." Despite the modesty of his words, the Doctor was obviously bursting with pride. "Now, you need to rest. If your recovery continues, I might be able to release you from sickbay tomorrow."

"Doctor, before you sedate him again, could we have a minute?"

"Of course, Captain."

The Doctor moved away from the biobed, and Janeway looked down at their joined hands, suddenly finding herself tongue tied. Her thumb stroked the back of Chakotay's hand, enjoying the feeling of warmth and the slight pulse in his veins under her fingers.

"Kathryn."

His use of her name brought her eyes back to his, and there was so much in his face at that moment, so many emotions that her heart seemed to stop, and her breath hitched in her chest. "You need to rest," she said softly. "We'll talk about everything when you're better."

He nodded, his eyes threatening to close even without the Doctor's sedative. "Okay. But, I wanted to tell you..."

He started to drift off, and his voice became a whisper. She leaned down so she could hear him, and whispered in his ear. "Wanted to tell me what?"

"Home... Getting home. I was dreaming of you."

Before she could reply, he had drifted off. She placed a kiss on his forehead, and let her hand rest on his chest for a long moment, feeling the steady beating of his heart. The Doctor came over with a hypospray. "What's his prognosis, Doctor?"

"I have only two more doses of the antidote to give him. I think I'll be able to release him from sickbay tomorrow. By the time we get back to Earth, he should be good as new."

Janeway grasped the Doctor's shoulder. "Thank you, Doctor."

The EMH looked up at her and smiled softly. "I wasn't about to let him die on you, Captain."

She looked away from the Doctor's penetrating gaze. "For those few moments, when I thought I had lost him forever, I just kept thinking..."

"Thinking what?"

"That I didn't know how to go on without him. I know that I could. I would find a way; I've done it before." She paused, voicing her thoughts for the first time. "Everything has just happened so fast: meeting Admiral Janeway, finding out about Chakotay and Seven, getting home, debriefings, and then getting sent right back out on this mission."

"You haven't had any time to process what's happened," the Doctor supplied.

"Right. I suppose that's part of it." She took a few steps away from Chakotay's biobed, and the Doctor followed.

"And the other part?"

She shrugged. "I don't know. I was telling Chakotay when we were stranded on Kerhonkset, I had always imagined our homecoming so differently. And then at a certain point, I stopped trying to imagine it altogether. It became too painful to hope for, only to have our hopes dashed again and again." She looked at the Doctor and chuckled softly. "I'm not making any sense, am I?"

"I can't say I understand all of your emotions, Captain, but as your physician, and as your friend, I've observed you for many years. You've had a singular goal that entire time. Every decision you made, every question you had to answer, every relationship you entered, they all were about how to get Voyager home. Now, you've done that, and you don't know what to do next. On top of that, you saw an older version of yourself - one that, if I may say, upset you a great deal. You learned that your best friend was dating the woman who you'd taken under your wing, and even though their relationship was short lived, it made you uncertain of his feelings for you, which you've always felt you can count on. Your mission to Kerhonkset was a disaster, one which you were only able to salvage with your brilliance as a leader and a diplomat. On top of everything, being faced with losing Commander Chakotay forever has forced you to confront your feelings for him - feelings you thought were long gone until now." The Doctor paused. Janeway's expression had morphed from horror to amusement as he spoke.

"I guess that about sums it up, Doctor."

"I'm sorry, Captain. Was I being too forward?"

"No, Doctor. Not at all. I appreciate your candor, and you're absolutely right." Shaking her head, she stepped towards the door.

The Doctor's words stopped her mid-stride. "Do you mind if I give you a little advice, Captain?"

Bemused, she replied, "You've already psychoanalyzed me pretty thoroughly; what difference would a little advice make?"

"Tell him how you feel. Voyager is on its way back to Earth again. Maybe this time, our homecoming can be a little more like you imagined it."